Aspiring and some young consultants tend to have a narrow outside-in view of management consulting. They make significant assumptions about why and how strategy studies are done, and try to replicate this assumed behavior. They think “being analytic” means analyzing things before every decision is made.

One common mistake is the assumption about the level of analyses we apply in real corporate strategy studies. As a partner, I had to constantly remind young consultants of the following maxim:

“What you choose to analyze is more important than how you analyze it.”

In this podcast I will discuss the two different steps consultants use to narrow down the areas we analyze in a real study. This is covered in much more detail in the forthcoming strategy training library, so this podcast will synthesize those points.

Everyone is familiar with hypotheses, the first step, yet many do not know how to develop hypotheses. However, the second step is just as effective and useful.

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